New Frontier
The term New Frontier was used by Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in his acceptance speech, delivered July 15, to the 1960 Democratic National Convention at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The phrase became a label for his administration's domestic and foreign programs.
In the words of Robert D. Marcus: "Kennedy entered office with ambitions to eradicate poverty and to raise America's eyes to the stars through the space program."
Origin
Kennedy proclaimed in his speech:Legislation
Among the legislation passed by Congress during the Kennedy Administration, unemployment benefits were expanded, aid was provided to cities to improve housing and transportation, funds were allocated to continue the construction of a national highway system started under Eisenhower, a water pollution control act was passed to protect the country's rivers and streams, and an agricultural act to raise farmers' incomes was made law. A significant amount of anti-poverty legislation was passed by Congress, including increases in social security benefits and in the minimum wage, several housing bills, and aid to economically distressed areas.A few anti-recession public works packages, together with a number of measures designed to assist farmers, were introduced. Major expansions and improvements were made in Social Security, hospital construction, library services, family farm assistance and reclamation. Food stamps for low-income Americans were reintroduced, food distribution to the poor was increased, and there was an expansion in school milk and school lunch distribution. The most comprehensive farm legislation since 1938 was carried out, with expansions in rural electrification, soil conservation, crop insurance, farm credit, and marketing orders.
In September 1961, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency was established as the focal point in government for the "planning, negotiation, and execution of international disarmament and arms control agreements."
Altogether, the New Frontier witnessed the passage of a broad range of social and economic reforms. However, proposed legislation which was considered more revolutionary languished in Congress. According to Theodore White, under John F. Kennedy, more new legislation was actually approved and passed into law than at any other time since the 1930s. When Congress recessed in the latter part of 1961, 33 out of 53 bills that Kennedy had submitted to Congress were enacted. A year later, 40 out of 54 bills that the Kennedy Administration had proposed were passed by Congress, and in 1963, 35 out of 58 "must" bills were enacted. As noted by Larry O'Brien, "A myth had arisen that he was uninterested in Congress, or that he 'failed' with Congress. The facts, I believe, are otherwise. Kennedy's legislative record in 1961–63 was the best of any President since Roosevelt's first term."
However, the Independence Hall Association's website U.S. History.org describes then-Vice President and future U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society as the "largest reform agenda since Roosevelt's New Deal" and as what also managed to "complete the unfinished work of JFK's New Frontier." In his book John F. Kennedy on Leadership, John A. Barnes stated Congress in fact passed few of Kennedy's New Frontier proposals during his lifetime, with major initiatives not being enacted until 1964 and 1965, during Johnson's Presidency. The United States Department of Labor also stated that Johnson "immediately set about to enact the balance of Kennedy's New Frontier" after taking office following Kennedy's assassination. It has also been acknowledged that during his presidency, Kennedy had placed Johnson, a former Senate Majority Leader, in charge of getting his New Frontier proposals passed through Congress.
Advisors
Historians and political scientists were given prominent positions within the Kennedy administration. Several themes that were popular in the post-World War II American histories were apparent during the administration and also reflected in the television series Profiles in Courage. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. was an important figure in the post-war efforts to create a "moderately liberal domestic consensus". Beginning in 1961, Schlesinger served as a special assistant to Kennedy. He was a member of the liberal lobbying group Americans for Democratic Action and in 1949 he published The Vital Center, a book which has been described as "a manifesto for anticommunist liberals, defining an agenda that combined the social concerns of the New Deal with support for the Cold War policy of containment of Soviet power."Within Schlesinger's analytical framework of the domestic politics of the United States during this period he identifies three main ideological currents: 1) what he calls the "vital center" are the "New Deal liberals" who had been gaining ground politically since 1933, 2) right-wing racial extremists mostly confined to the Southern regions of the United States, and 3) Communists who Schlesinger identifies as posing the "primary opposition to American values from within and without". Schlesinger, working on Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1960, sought an image of the candidate that would show the candidate's personal and individual accomplishment as counter to a collectivist ethos. Schlesinger's work along with Richard Neustadt's and other thinkers were key influences in the development of the New Frontier-era policies.
Legislation and programs
Economy
The Kennedy Administration pushed an economic stimulus program through congress in an effort to kick-start the American economy following an economic downturn. On February 2, 1961, Kennedy sent a comprehensive Economic Message to Congress which had been in preparation for several weeks. The legislative proposals put forward in this message included:- The addition of a temporary thirteen-week supplement to jobless benefits,
- The extension of aid to the children of unemployed workers,
- The redevelopment of distressed areas,
- An increase in Social Security payments and the encouragement of earlier retirement,
- An increase in the minimum wage and an extension in coverage,
- The provision of emergency relief to feed grain farmers,
- The financing of a comprehensive home building and slum clearance program.
- Under his own presidential authority, Kennedy carried out various measures to boost the economy under his own executive anti-recessionary acceleration program. Through his own initiative, he directed all Federal agencies to accelerate their procurement and construction, particularly in labor surplus areas. A long-range program of post office construction was compressed into the first six months of his presidency, farm price supports were raised and their payments advanced, over a billion dollars in state highway aid funds were released ahead of schedule, and the distribution of tax refunds and GI life insurance dividends were sped up. In addition, free food distribution to needy families was expanded, state governors were urged by Kennedy to spend federal funds more rapidly for hospitals, schools, roads, and waste treatment facilities, the college housing and urban renewal programs were pushed forward, and procurement agencies were directed to make purchases in areas of high unemployment.
- In an attempt to expand credit and stimulate building, Kennedy ordered a reduction in the maximum permissible interest rate on FHA insured loans, reduced the interest rate on Small Business Administration loans in distressed areas, expanded its available credit and liberalized lending by the Federal Home Loan Banks. The Federal Reserve Board was also encouraged to help keep long-term interest rates low through the purchase of long-term government issues.
- By 1964 economic recovery had begun, as low interest rates in mid-1962 stimulated a boom in the housing industry, while accelerated expenditures on veterans' benefits, highway building, and other government procurement programs revived consumer demand.
- The Trade Expansion Act of 1962 authorized the president to negotiate tariff reductions on a reciprocal basis of up to 50 percent with the European Common Market. It provided legislative authority for U.S. participation in multilateral trade negotiations from 1964 to 1967, which became known as the Kennedy Round. The authority expired June 30, 1967, predetermining the concluding date of the Kennedy Round. U.S. duties below five percent ad valorem, duties on certain agricultural commodities, and duties on tropical products exported by developing countries could be reduced to zero under the act. The 1962 legislation explicitly eliminated the "Peril Point" provision that had limited U.S. negotiating positions in earlier General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade rounds, and instead called on the Tariff Commission and other agencies of the U.S. government to provide the president and his negotiators with information regarding the probable economic effects of specific tariff concessions.
Taxation
The final and best means of strengthening demand among consumers and business is to reduce the burden on private income and the deterrents to private initiative which are imposed by our present tax system; and this administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes to be enacted and become effective in 1963. I am not talking about a 'quickie' or a temporary tax cut, which would be more appropriate if a recession were imminent. Nor am I talking about giving the economy a mere shot in the arm, to ease some temporary complaint. I am talking about the accumulated evidence of the last 5 years that our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peacetime; that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking.
Kennedy specifically advocated cutting the corporate tax rate in this same speech. "Corporate tax rates must also be cut to increase incentives and the availability of investment capital. The Government has already taken major steps this year to reduce business tax liability and to stimulate the modernization, replacement, and expansion of our productive plant and equipment. We have done this through the 1962 investment tax credit and through the liberalization of depreciation allowances—two essential parts of our first step in tax revision which amounted to a 10 percent reduction in corporate income taxes worth $2.5 billion." President Kennedy went on to say he preferred tax cuts for the rich as well as the poor:
Next year's tax bill should reduce personal as well as corporate income taxes, for those in the lower brackets, who are certain to spend their additional take-home pay, and for those in the middle and upper brackets, who can thereby be encouraged to undertake additional efforts and enabled to invest more capital.
On the same evening, President Kennedy said the private sector and not the public sector was the key to economic growth:
"In short, to increase demand and lift the economy, the Federal Government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures." President Kennedy told the economic club the impact he expected from tax cuts. "Profit margins will be improved and both the incentive to invest and the supply of internal funds for investment will be increased. There will be new interest in taking risks, in increasing productivity, in creating new jobs and new products for long-term economic growth."